Looking Back: Freeport artist left her mark on northwest Illinois

Lena Historical Society has recently featured a special exhibit of art work done by former Freeport resident Marie Langan Birkett.

It was an unusual display of work by a talented and prolific artist. Her daughter, Barbara Birkett Scheidel of Sahuarita, Ariz., brought 250 pieces of her mother’s work for display at the museum, and presented a talk for the September meeting of the Lena Historical Society. She agreed to share her talk with Looking Back readers. It tells the fascinating story as follows:

“Mom was a sign painter in northwestern Illinois for more than 30 years. She lettered trucks — from pickups to semis — and signs from as small as a business door to as large as a billboard. I’m guessing that by the late 1960s Mom had probably lettered something for the great majority of Lena-area businesses. And since it used to be a law that trucks had to have a name and address on them, a lot of farmers and others in the area had their pickups lettered by her.

“Like most people, my brothers and I thought of her as a talented sign painter — knowing what I know now. I imagine Willie Kayser, Orville Noller and others (Lena business owners) were customers who occasionally had her do a project like the fire department picture, the butcher scene or the mural that used to hang in Noller’s Supermarket.

“Mom was born and raised in Freeport. Except for the years Dad was in the Army, she lived in northwestern Illinois for her entire life. Born in 1921, she died from cancer in 1979 at the age of 58. As I went through things after her death, I discovered two cardboard boxes full of more than 250 pieces of artwork. We went through them and admired them, but when Dad began to have serious health problems I boxed the pictures back up and they were stored for another 30 years while life went on.

“My brother Bill passed on in 2009. A couple years ago, his daughter asked if I had any of Mom’s art, and the boxes came back out. In March of this year, I contacted Willie Kayser of Lena and asked about having a one-time display of Mom’s artwork at the Lena Historical Society museum. I included more than 240 pieces in this display. None of the pieces were mounted or matted, so my husband Roy cut mounting boards and I matted them.

“I found out that Mom had a passion for painting at an early age. Remember those ‘Can You Draw Me?’ ads? This famous ad campaign was run by the Federal School, Inc. of Minneapolis. It was called the Federal School because it was originally established by the Bureau of Engraving to train illustrators for the growing printing industry. Their students were soon in constant demand throughout the advertising, printing and newspaper industries. I found a certificate that shows that at the age of 12, Mom answered one of those ads. I don’t know what the subject was, but she earned a rating of 85.

“The earliest dated painting I found was titled ‘Our Friends at the Zoo,’ and dated July 10, 1935. The paper has browned with age because acid-free paper was not available until the 1950s. Still, the art is considered to be in remarkable condition, if it had not been stored in a box for more than 60 years, the paper would have been exposed to light and other elements and would likely be brittle and in terrible condition.

“Part of this project was tracking where Mom lived at various ages. The earliest address I have for her is on South Liberty in Freeport. She would have lived there with my Grandpa and Grandma Langan, and Mom’s younger sister, Grace. I know that address because it was written on the back of an ink drawing done in 1937 at the age of 16. I know from information on the back of some of her early drawings that by 1939 they were living on South Kenwood in Freeport.

“A newspaper clipping indicates that as a student at Freeport High School, Mom won second prize in a poster contest sponsored by the Northwest District Dental Association. Three hundred posters were entered in the contest and 12 awards were given — probably in 1938 or 1939.

“Mom graduated in 1939 — one of 212 students. In the 1939 Freeport High yearbook ‘Polaris,’ there is a photograph of Mom drawing a picture of a train, and I found an airbrushed piece of original art that was one of four similarly themed pages in the 1939 yearbook.

“From July 1937, the summer before her junior year, through March 1940, she worked as a phone operator for Northwest Telephone Company for $12 a week. Then she worked as an apprentice at Ace Parnham Sign Shop in Freeport from April 1940 to July 1940. She was an office girl and did showcards, earning $12.50 a week.

“In July 1940 she started as a factory worker at Freeport’s Burgess Battery, earning $14 a week. The money was better, but she only worked there a month. Beginning in September 1940, she worked as a sales lady at F.A. Read Co. in Freeport, earning $50 a month, but I remember her telling us that when she worked at F.A. Read, she also was able to do showcards to advertise sales, and also did window displays.

“Mom met my Dad, who was also raised in Freeport, in February 1941. He was drafted four months later. Mom continued working at F.A. Read until March 1942, when she left to join my Dad in Louisville, Ky., where the Army had assigned him to attend a radio electrician’s course at Fort Knox. Mom and Dad were married on March 21.

“Dad was then sent to Officer Candidate School. During this time, Mom worked at W.T. Grant Company in Louisville as a window trimmer, earning $13.50 a week. By September 1942, they were in Watertown, N.Y., where she worked for one month as a sales lady at F.W. Woolworth Co.

“By November 1942 Dad was assigned to Desert Center in Blythe, Calif., and they lived in Needles, Calif., until February 1943, when they were sent to a base near Coleman, Texas. My brother Bruce Bion Basil was born in Coleman on Sept. 11, 1943. According to a detailed list I found, the total cost of that pregnancy and birth, including clothes, medicine, bassinet, doctor’s fee, hospital charge and even the cigars and telegrams was $180.32.

“Coleman was the longest they stayed in one place during the service, from February 1943 until the spring of 1944, when Dad received orders that he was going overseas. They drove back to Freeport, visited relatives, and then Dad headed out. In June 1944, Mom and Bruce were living on Pleasant Street in Freeport, by September on North Bailey Avenue, and finally by Nov. 3, 1944 they were settled at 415 N. West Ave. in a small four-room house with part of one room reserved for her studio.

“Shortly after moving here, she began taking a correspondence art course through the Art Instruction School in Minneapolis. This was the same ‘Draw Me’ school (formerly known as Federal School, Inc.) that she first sent that drawing to when she was 12 years old. It is still recognized as the premier home study art school in the United States. One of their most famous alumni is Charles Schulz of ‘Peanuts’ fame ... Mom earned her Certificate of Completion in November 1949.”

The museum display

“The display was set up in two sections. The first set of panels were dated from 1935 to 1944, and were signed Marie Langan or actually had the date on the art. The other dated pieces, which ran through 1948, were done as assignments for that art course and had a label on the back with Mom’s name, address and the date the piece was submitted to the school.

“The second set of panels on both sides was of undated art, although I do know that all the pieces were done between 1935 and the end of 1950. One noticeable thing is the variety of mediums … including colored pencil, chalk, watercolor, ink, charcoal and mixed media. Another thing is that the subject matter varies tremendously.

“So, how did Mom go from doing all these amazing watercolors, inks, and so on to being a full-time sign painter? After I talked to Art Instruction, Inc., they sent me copies of her school records. According to remarks on those papers, Mom was doing some showcard and sign work as early as 1945. At that time, she was also teaching art in the primary grades at St. Thomas Catholic School in Freeport. She was interested in commercial artwork.

“In April 1946, Art School instructors noted that Mom was already doing lots of lettering for trucks, filling stations and other companies, although they mentioned that she wanted to do illustration work. My parents moved into the property on McConnell Road in 1946. My brother Bill was born in Freeport in 1946 and I followed 13 months later on Jan. 22, 1948. My Dad was a first lieutenant in the Army when he and Mom decided they did not want to make a career of the military.

“By February 1949, school comments indicate that Mom was doing even more sign work. Comments from May and July 1950 praise Mom’s imaginative work, calling her designs very original and promising. We do know that Mom was offered a job with Hallmark Cards, probably around the end of 1950, but it meant she would have had to spend three days a week in Chicago. That just was not feasible in 1950, not when you had three small kids and no immediate family nearby.

“I think that job offer prompted a definite decision that a career in commercial art illustration was not going to be feasible. I think Mom and Dad had to choose between moving to a metropolitan area where Mom would have been able to pursue a career in art or to stay in the Lena area and devote their energies to raising a family the way they wanted to. I think this is when they decided to focus on sign painting and when Mom put the artwork in the boxes and decided instead to grow Birkett Signs.

“While Mom didn’t pursue commercial illustration in the usual sense, she did use her talents throughout her life, not just as illustrations on lettering jobs, but also for gifts, crafts and various hobbies.

“My brother Bruce and I put up the display to be a tribute to our mother’s talent and to share it with the northwestern Illinois communities where she spent the great majority of her life.”

Harriett Gustason is a writer for The Journal-Standard. She can be reached at 815-235-3855 or hg3855@comcast.net.